This is Part 2 of a multi-part series examining how we use the Power of the Word in politics, particularly in the 2020 presidential race. Look for other pieces such where I will examine how each major candidate for President of the United States uses the power of their word. Rev. Sara S. Nichols is senior minister at the Center for Spiritual Living, Davis and the Spiritual Director of All is Well Institute which supports and teaches people how to heal themselves using spiritual tools. Trained as an attorney, before coming to spiritual science, she was a legislative and communications advocate for Medicare for All and other consumer issues in Congress and the California legislature.
Next up, "Bernie Sanders and the Power of the Word"
In evaluating 2020 candidates for president, voters should ask a question that’s not even on their radar: who is the candidate for President that can most effectively use what some call “the power of positive thinking,” and what I call the Power of the Word (See "What exactly is 'the Power of the Word?' and How does it Work in Politics?") to shift the parameters of the possible? And of those, who is using that power to create and reveal a nation and a world that works for everyone (rather than as a means to an end to acquire power)? As a person who, before becoming a new thought minister, lost the good fight as a lawyer and consumer rights advocate in Congress and the California Legislature, let me acquaint you with the current White House occupant’s use of “the power of the word.” No one who is voting for president in 2020 should underestimate this factor in the race.
Donald Trump and his family were strongly influenced by Norman Vincent Peale, a Christian minister who wrote the bestseller, The Power of Positive Thinking. Trump’s father Fred was close to Peale who helped him use this philosophy to acquire real estate. Peale officiated at Donald Trump’s first wedding. As Politico Magazine detailed in its late 2017 article, "The Power of Trump's Positive Thinking", Fred brought the Donald up to use positive thinking “to be a winner” and to assert that he is winning, even when all evidence is to the contrary. Note that what makes this thinking “positive” is not that it is good, moral, true or loving; what makes it “positive” is that it is an affirmation of what the thinker desires to be true, despite what’s really showing up in the world.
Politico walks us through many of times in his life and career that this strategy has worked for Donald Trump. But we hardly need the detail because we have all watched this in real time. I notice it perhaps more than some might because it is a perverse version of what I teach, the power of the word, the power of my mind over conditions.
Indeed, Politico Magazine quotes best selling positive thinking writer Mitch Horowitz on the president, “‘He is a kind of Frankenstein monster of the philosophy’ of positive thought,” said Horowitz. “Trump seems to be an example of at least the short-term, destructive gains that you can attain through self-help, through self-assertion, and people’s willingness to believe what they think that they see.”
Although I encourage you to read it for yourself, the point of Politico’s article is different in thrust from mine. Its author, Michael Kruse, is interested in whether Trump has reached the limitations of the use of this philosophy. Eighteen months later, the answer is clear--we cannot rule out that he will use it to maintain power at any cost, despite all logic and appearance.
Trump’s rise to power on a river of hate through the force of his mind and the triumph of his will illustrates both the power of these principles, the true neutrality and nonjudgmental character of infinite or universal law, and the danger of teaching people to work with this law without grounding their actions in values, like the ones my denomination (the Centers for Spiritual Living) teach, which include diversity and inclusion, accountability, love, compassion, caring, and integrity.
On the one hand, Trump’s success could be seen as an inspiration to anyone who is considering the possibility that they need not be bound by precedent or apparent conditions. By any standard in our history, external conditions were these: Donald Trump had zero chance of being elected president of the United States. He had no political experience, no military experience, no public policy experience, no foreign policy experience. He has multiple broken marriages, multiple affairs, multiple accusers of sexual assault and harassment. He won’t be handled. He broke with Republican orthodoxy to be anti-free-trade, pro-protectionism. He is openly racist, Islamophobic, misogynistic, encouraging of white supremacy and nationalism. He courts oppressive anti-American oligarchs and dictators around the world. In short, this is not a man who was supposed to win a Republican primary, let alone a general election. Any other candidate with his baggage, with his negatives, would have, as Politico points out, dropped out early on. Yet he was in it to win it and win it he did.
How, you ask? By using the power of the word, ungrounded in truth, values or effect. Donald Trump picks certain affirmations, “Make America Great Again,” “We’re Going to Build a Wall,” and “Lock Her Up” and he focuses on them to the exclusion of all else. He doesn’t let “facts” get in his way. He doesn’t let the “rule of [human] law” get in his way. And he largely achieves his goal, independent of external conditions or "facts." No, he has not made America greater, built a wall or locked her up, but he has become president--which was the point to him (if not to his followers).
What if the people who are supporting Trump are as attracted to the use of the power of his word as they are to his policies? As a new thought minister, I know that we often walk into a Center for Spiritual Living hurt, broken and sad. We feel disempowered. Often we are having trouble making ends meet. Sometimes we are in broken relationships. Maybe we are in ill health. We are attracted to what we teach as “Science of Mind” because if we believe only in external conditions then we feel hopeless and trapped. We are attracted to a philosophy that teaches us that no matter what our circumstances, they can change. No matter how bad things seem, conditions have no power over us. As a lawyer and legislative advocate, after years of losing the fight for Medicare for All in Congress and the state of California, I was attracted to this teaching partly because I saw a way to use it to alter the parameters of the possible. I saw that until we mobilized universal law to our aid, no amount of marching, petitions and press releases alone would be successful.
Let us put ourselves in the shoes of the avid Trump supporter for a minute. If you believe or align with any of the issues that Donald Trump is talking about--maybe it’s even just the obvious fact of the middle class disappearing or good jobs have left the US to go overseas under free trade--might you not be attracted by his command, his authority, his seeming ability to overcome, persevere and maintain no matter what people say about him, no matter what the seeming obstacles? No matter what the human laws say? Isn’t Trump’s adherence to his own law of the gut notable when seen from that perspective?
Donald Trump is not allowing conditions to control. Presidents don’t tweet? I tweet. Presidents don't attack their own cabinet appointees? I do. Presidents respect the rule of law, at least publically? I don’t. Presidents abide by the Constitution? Only where it serves the goal. Donald Trump has only one Constitution, and it is his gut. He is obedient to what works. He has not done it alone; he has used his platform to bring his base into alignment with his focus. Together their powerful consciousness is making things possible that I didn’t know were possible and that I don’t want to be possible: demonizing immigrants, separating children at the borders, taking away LGBTQ rights, dismantling environmental and food safety protections, chipping away at or outright eliminating the separation of powers and co-equal authority of the judiciary and the Congress to get in the way of any of these goals.
Every effective leader in history has mobilized the power of the word and articulated a vision and a future beyond apparent conditions. Just imagine if we had a presidential candidate who used the “power of the word” for love and for the good of everyone instead of just their own ascent and retention of power? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have someone running for president who thought that the control of our political system by billionaires was just a condition that had no power over us? Someone who believed and credibly asserted that the power of the gun lobby couldn’t prevent us from keeping our children safe? Someone who really thought that we could provide quality affordable health care for every single person in this country from cradle to grave? Someone who knew that we could actually right now dramatically slow the rate of carbon emissions and reverse climate change with the collective power of our mind in politics?
There are many candidates for president, most of those running for the Democratic nomination, that espouse the policies listed above. How many of them believe they can do it, though, I begin to wonder? How many of them are a) truly grounded in those values and b) really know how to use the power of their word? What if in addition to what demographic they appeal to, how much or what experience they have, or whether they can come across to the voters in Michigan, we looked closely at how they use universal law in the world? What if we understood that the current president’s biggest liabilities were also his biggest assets? What if we seized those assets for ourselves and named and claimed our time as now?
In future articles I’ll examine these questions and more, does Bernie Sanders believe in the power of his word or just the power of the people? Is that enough? Does new thought writer Marianne Williamson have a head start in beating Donald Trump at his own game because she knows the power of the word? What does Kamala Harris actually believe? How did Barack Obama use his word? How can we ourselves use the power of our own word to create and reveal an America and a world that works for everyone?
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